"The Japanese anime studio Toei Animation announced on Tuesday that it is revising its earnings forecast higher for the current fiscal year ending in March of 2012. Specifically, it is revising its estimated revenues for the second half of the year higher — and as a result, it projects that it will have the highest annual revenues in the company's history.

Projected revenues from One Piece character goods, events, and DVDs have increased for the second half. Toei Animation had already announced a revision to its earnings forecast on July 25. Between the two revisions, Toei has raised its projected revenues for the current fiscal year over 37% from the initial 21.1 billion yen (US$277 million) estimate. Last fiscal year, the studio reported annual revenues of 26.622 billion yen (US$349.6 million)."

This is still to be confirmed but director Shane Black indicated at his Long Beach Comic Con panel on Saturday that Warner Brothers' planned live-action film adaptation of Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata's manga Death Note is still in the works.

However, Black added that the project was in jeopardy because the studio initially wanted to lose "the demon [Ryuk]. [They] don't want the kid to be evil…. They just kept qualifying it until it ceased to exist." Black said that "the creation of a villain, the downward spiral" of the main character Light has been restored in the script, and added that this is what the film should be about.

Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry were slated to write the Death Note project's script. Warner Bros. had acquired the rights to the series from previous rights-owner Vertigo Entertainment in 2009. At the time, screenwriter brothers Vlas and Charles Parlapanides were attached to the project. "

Source: ANN

Oh, no... X_X First they want to ruin Akira and now Death Note, just for the sake of competing with Marvel movies?!?!

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of Japan (SFWJ) announced that the Puella Magi Madoka Magica anime series is one of five nominees for the 32nd Nihon SF Taishō Award on Monday.

With this award, SFWJ honors the best in the fields of science fiction and fantasy during the past year. The Nihon SF Taishō Awards are the rough Japanese equivalent of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Nebula Awards.

Japanese publisher Enterbrain has released the first trailer for the upcoming anime adaptation of Sadanatsu Anda’s light novel series Kokoro Connect. The school comedy depicts the five members of a school club who mysteriously swap bodies.

This is an interview conducted by ICvs2, in which they ask Alvin Lu, Senior Vicepresident and General Manager of Viz Media, about the reasons on why Shonen Jump USA will be digital only, starting on May 2012.

Also, some questions were directed at Hisashi Sasaki, who runs Shonen Jump at Viz co-parent Shueisha in Japan.

"After the stunning Viz Media announcement at New York Comic Con that it was canceling its North American Shonen Jump magazine in favor of a weekly digital edition, Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha (see “Viz Launching 'Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha'”), many questions remained.

One was why Viz was canceling a comic title that’s the bestselling comic in North America many months of the year. ICv2 had the opportunity to ask additional questions about the company’s plans. We spoke to Alvin Lu, Senior Vice President and General Manager at Viz Media, and Hisashi Sasaki, who runs Shonen Jump at Viz co-parent Shueisha in Japan.

- Why are you canceling the print version of Shonen Jump in North America?Alvin Lu: Once we had the possibility of doing a weekly publication digitally, it made the print magazine, not obsolete, but the content is not as fresh. We feel that manga in its native form is a periodical, a sort of live performance, as it were. We went with the print magazine in the first place because it was the closest we could get to that given the limitations that we faced at the time. Once the possibilities of digital came into play, doing something much more live and fresh came into play, having a print magazine lagging behind that became less essential.

-What’s the circulation of the print magazine?Alvin Lu: About 125,000 right now. Wow, that’s a lot.

-Have you done any research on how those readers feel about migrating to digital? Alvin Lu: We have. Obviously there will be a segment of the readership that will miss the print magazine; we will miss the print magazine. We also understand that some of the subscriber base and the readers won’t want to move to a digital format. At the same time, I think what we saw here was the potential for something much larger. We want to give the current readers every opportunity to try out the digital magazine. If they don’t, we’re definitely respecting that. In some sense, our subscribers to Shonen Jump magazine are our most treasured fan base and we want to give them all the respect we can.

-What’s the relationship between print and digital Shonen Jump in Japan? Hisashi Sasaki: We don’t do it in Japan digitally; it’s print only.

-Why?Hisashi Sasaki: We don’t think it’s necessary in Japan.

-Why is digital more necessary in the United States than it is in Japan?Hisashi Sasaki: In Japan there are about 20,000 bookstores in such a small area. There are more so-called convenience stores everywhere. People are so used to reading Shonen Jump magazine weekly, weekly, weekly--just go out of the home and just buy it. At the kiosk at the station, at the convenience stores, book stores, it’s much easier. That’s their kind of lifestyle. Instead of turning on the computer, starting up the Web browser, Japanese people are so used to reading paper print magazines.

-We understand the digital market for manga there was about $600 million dollars last year, so some must have a computer. Hisashi Sasaki: The $600 million dollar market was for graphic novels, not magazines. We don’t see the necessity to introduce magazines digitally in Japan.

-Are you hoping this will have an impact on illegal downloads? Alvin Lu: Yes, definitely. I think having the price point, the convenience of use of the platform we’ve developed (which I don’t think should be understated, with our ability to reach younger readers online, I actually think with that 99 cent price of entry it’s easier to get your favorite Shonen Jump titles every week this way than to go out of your way to an illegitimate source.

-How, if at all, does this affect your strategy for graphic novels here in the states, the collected editions? Alvin Lu: It’s complementary. Our digital and print strategies are moving toward a complementary model, but this in particular allows us, again, through the combination of the convenience, the breadth of reach, the price point, to really reach a larger potential base of new fans than we’re currently reaching. We’re hoping it will serve as a converter to get people hooked on the stories and for the ones that they really like they can get the permanent versions in the graphic novels which are available in print or in digital.

-As you know, 125,000 copies of Shonen Jump makes it one of the best-selling comics in the United States. You said you expected to do better in the digital form; what are your sales goals for the digital edition? Alvin Lu: They are quite aggressive. We’ll have to watch and see, but one of the immediate goals is to hope that we can bring along as many of the current readers of the Shonen Jump magazine as we can.

-How are you going to get new readers? You said you expect it to be bigger ultimately than the print edition; what kind of marketing other than social media and PR and so forth are you doing? Alvin Lu: We have a number of marketing options. We’ve developed our online marketing capabilities in a number of ways. The Viz family of Websites itself draws a very significant amount of traffic. That will be one of the major entry points, and from there we will build a base. We’ll basically grow our marketing strategy from there.

-Are you going to do any free sampling? Alvin Lu: We’re doing some free sampling right now for a lot of the graphic novel titles. We feel that the 99 cent price point, that first introductory point of entry, that’s pretty close to a free sample. We’ve also found when people pay for that first taste we get a much better conversion down the road. That’s something we’re also hoping for as well. There will be free content as well. The basic package is paid for, but like any magazine publication we’ll be explaining more details as we go along. There are other components to the digital, to the magazine publication, a large part of that will be open to the public.

-Are you going to sell this to any other platforms other than the Viz proprietary platform? Alvin Lu: We want to be in as many channels as possible. We’re starting with the Viz proprietary platform. We’d like to get the Viz Manga platform onto as many channels as possible. Same as with our graphic novels. Expand that in a way that makes sense. We want to be able to have the app and the experience of buying directly through the Viz store as much as possible. We’re also looking at distributing our content through other avenues as well.

-A year from now, how will you evaluate the success of this program? If it sells less than the physical Shonen Jump is now, will you regard that as a disappointment? Alvin Lu: The immediate goal is to get the circulation to the point that it is now. We’ll have to see what the adoption rate is before we can decide how quickly we can get there."

Japanese kindergartens in order to reduce stress for the children, they made the school bus will be very cute and colorful decoration. The kids very enjoy the cute bus. Some adults also wanna try to take the cute school bus.

Video game developer Level 5 has confirmed that its new game project “Yokai Watch” will get a manga and anime TV series adaptation. The story revolves around young boy Keita who becomes friends with the ghost Whisper and obtains a “yokai watch” that allows him to see ghosts. .

The live action project is alive again in Warner Bros. Studio after a new team decided to take on the project.

Lots of diffuse information right now, but Twitch entertainment news site has reported that Gary Oldman (Sid and Nancy, Harry Potter films, Dark Knight trilogy) and Helena Bonham-Carter (A Room with a View, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, The King's Speech) have been offered the roles of Colonel Shikishima and Lady Miyako, respectively.

Also, Variety has reported that Garrett Hedlund, the star of last year's Tron: Legacy film, is a frontrunner for one of Akira's two male leads, although he has not been formally offered the role.

Production is set to begin in late February or early March 2012. According to the magazine, the film's current story goes as follows: "Set in New Manhattan, the cyberpunk sci-fi epic follows the leader of a biker gang who must save his friend, discovered with potentially destructive psychokinetic abilities, from government medical experiments." The estimated budget has been projected as a “$90 million blockbuster.” >-< Fan expectation is less than enthusiast regarding this project, given the failure of Dragon Ball and Speed Racer films.

The first episode of the second Kaichu! web anime series is now streaming. The adaptation of Yuki Hayashi’s school archery club comedy manga revolves around a cross-dressing male archery prodigy. Kaichu! got its first two-episode web anime adaptation last year.

It is even in the NY Times bestseller list!!Kodansha USA Publishing, the American arm of the Japanese publisher Kodansha, announced on Friday that the English version of Sailor Moon manga volume 1 will get a second print run after the first print run of 50,000 copies "sold out in just four weeks." Kodansha USA did not specify if the 50,000 copies of Naoko Takeuchi's magical girl manga sold out at the distributor level or at the retailer level.

With the second print run, the volume will have 100,000 copies in print. Kodansha noted that the first volume of Sailor Moon has stayed on top of The New York Times manga bestseller list for a third week in a row since it debuted on September 13. Takeuchi's related Codename: Sailor V volume 1 had two weeks at #2 after debuting on September 13.

North American manga publisher Viz Media announced at New York Comic Con on Friday that its Shonen Jump magazine will end publication next March with a "farewell April 2012 issue." Viz announced the print magazine's end in conjunction with the unveiling of its successor — the digital anthology Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha.

At least three of the manga titles in Shonen Jump's most recent print issue (October/November 2011) will continue in the digital Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha next January: Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece. Shonen Jump has been publishing Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, Toriko, and Bakuman. online since 2010 with a supplement only available to print magazine subscribers.

Wow I really loved to collect the print version :-(

Shonen Jump USA edition started in 2002, due to the growing popularity of anime and manga series outside of Japan.

At least the advantage I see is that its format will be weekly instead of monthly!

The email newsletter for Kodansha's Comic Plus members revealed on Wednesday that a film adaptation of Hiro Mashima's Fairy Tail manga will open next August.

More details will be provided in future postings of the newsletter. The manga and the ongoing television anime follow the adventures of world's most notorious mage guild, Fairy Tail.

In addition to the television series, three original anime DVDs have been bundled or will be bundled with the manga. Del Rey published the 12th volume of the original manga in North America last September, and Kodansha resumed publishing the manga in English with the 13th volume this past February. Crunchyroll streams the television anime into several countries as it airs in Japan, and Funimation will release the first DVD/Blu-ray set in November.

The television station TBS reported that manga creator Kei Aoyama was found dead, hung from his neck, in the bathroom of his Tokyo apartment on October 9. He was 32. There were no visible signs of wounds or a struggle in the bathroom, and the last posts on Aoyama's Twitter account, dated October 6, discussed mortality, including a final post that said: Well, I have much left to do and much I dreamed of doing, but I hardly have any "regrets." I am content with the 32 years I have lived.

The police are investigating Aoyama's death as a possible suicide. The police had received an emergency call around 9:00 p.m. on October 9 from a person at the Japanese publisher Kodansha, who said, "We haven't been able to contact Mr. Aoyama."

The police rushed to Aoyama's apartment, where they discovered him in the bathroom. Aoyama was serializing the manga Yoiko no Mokushiroku in Kodansha's Evening magazine from last year to the time of his passing.

He also created or drew the manga SWWEEET in Shogakukan's Monthly Ikki magazine, China Girl, and Strobe Light. According to the police investigation, Kodansha was not able to contact Aoyama since October 6.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 released more than 7 minutes English trailer. This FFXIII-2 trailer reveals more gameplay and more action-packed battles. The game will be released in Japan on December 15, 2011, January 31 2012 in North America and February 3, 2012 in Europe.